The weekend killing of a Watts-area gang leader triggered a rash of retaliation shootings that has left at least two more young men dead and others wounded, police said Tuesday.
Brandon "B.L." Bullard, 25, whom police identified as a key member of the Grape Street Crips, was shot in the face at a party in a rented hall on Florence Avenue in South-Central Los Angeles about 1 a.m. Sunday and later died. (The coroner spelled Bullard's first name Branden.)
At least seven other people were wounded when more than one gunman sprayed the crowd at the party, which was also attended by members of the East Coast Crips, police said.
Since then, an innocent bystander has been killed in an area controlled by the East Coast Crips. Another man died Sunday outside the Jordan Downs housing project, a Grape Street stronghold, and six other men were injured in what police believe were related street shootings, all before Tuesday.
"Two gangs are going at each other," Chief William J. Bratton told the Police Commission on Tuesday.
High numbers of shootings are not unusual in that section of South L.A., and the initial killing may have stemmed not from gang issues, but from a personal dispute between women associated with the gang members, police said.
But authorities fear that the violence, coming after a year in which homicides dropped by half in the LAPD's Southeast Division, which includes the area of the retaliatory shootings, might signal a return to cycles of vengeance of the past.
After Bullard, who had the authority to settle gang disputes, was wounded in a Christmas 2005 shooting, two dozen other men were shot, Cmdr. Pat Gannon said.
That spiral of violence helped jump-start the Watts Gang Task Force and a long period of peace between the gangs, authorities said.
"Three to five years ago this probably wouldn't have been a story," Councilwoman Janice Hahn said. "But this violence is a bigger deal now because we've spent so much time with the Watts Gang Task Force and intervention workers, and we've managed to stem the violence and the retaliation."
Hahn, whose district includes Watts, said people need to understand that "it takes everyone to keep the peace, including the gang members."
Deputy Chief Charlie Beck said the city has moved extra officers from the downtown Metro squad, and gang officers, into the neighborhood. Hahn said every anti-gang group funded by the city has also mobilized in the neighborhood.
